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The knock at the door, brisk and demanding, came in the middle of a particularly tricky bit of translation. Erich, who preferred the smooth glide of a fountain pen for his work rather than a biro, blotted a line and grimaced.
"Just a moment," he called. Visitors were less of a surprise these days, and less worrying than they had once been. Bigglesworth and Raymond were regular callers, and it was not unknown for a neighbour to stop by or a salesman to try to sell him something.
But there was no sense in taking chances. He slipped his automatic into his pocket and went to the door. "Who is it?"
"Is this the residence of Erich von Stalhein?" The voice was male and completely unfamiliar.
Erich steadied himself, though he could not control the racing of his heart. Living here, he had begun to lose his caution; now it rushed back. He wished that he had not given away his presence, but there was no help for it now. The top-floor flat had no back exit.
"Who is asking?"
"Section 5, sir. Please open the door."
MI5, Erich thought—what did they want with him? If that was indeed who they were. In his pocket, his hand was damp on the grip of the automatic.
"I'll need to see your warrant card," he said.
"Of course."
It went against all his instincts, but he unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
There were two of them, one large and dark, the other short, sturdy, and sandy-haired. Dark hair flashed a warrant card in the name of Turnbull; the other's identified him as Miller. Both cards looked legitimate, but they gave him only a moment to look before Turnbull gave the door a thrust, and Erich had to take a quick step backward to avoid being caught in the face. Then they were in his flat.
He withdrew to the side as they marched in, looking all around. He had a profound sense of being trespassed upon. It had been so long since he'd lived in the same place for more than a few weeks that it took him a moment to realise why it bothered him so much. It felt as if his home had been invaded.
With the two of them poking into corners, he had no time to dwell on this feeling. "Would you care for coffee or tea?" he asked. They ignored him. "I'm in this country legally. I have papers if you need to see them."
"We know who you are," Turnbull said absently. He was poking through von Stalhein's translations, knocking some of them to the floor. "What's all this? German and Russian?"
"Translation work," Erich said. He kept his voice calm. He had removed his hand from his pocket only with an effort. "I make my living that way." He turned his head; the other, quieter partner, Miller, was rifling through his cupboards. "I would be happy to answer any questions you have."
"Oh, you'll definitely do that." Leaving the table of translations in disarray, Turnbull glanced into the bedroom. "You live here alone?"
"Yes," Erich said with forced, careful courtesy. "Am I being accused of something?"
"Not yet. We're just here to talk."
They seemed to have no interest in talking, however. They opened cupboards and drawers, rifled his wardrobe and looking under his bed. Erich held his tongue and kept his temper with a lifetime's discipline. It was only things; it mattered not at all.
"If you tell me what you want, I can help you," he said.
"Good idea," Turnbull said. "Let's go have a chat."
Erich balked sharply when he realised they intended him to leave the flat with them. "We can talk here. I'll make coffee, or tea if you'd prefer."
"No, we'll talk on our turf. Come along and there won't be trouble. If you've done nothing, you've nothing to worry about."
Turnbull put a heavy hand on his arm. Erich shrugged it off with a swift, graceful slide of his arm, half instinct more than anything else. He was seized and slammed into the wall, and his automatic was taken off him. He had to school himself to stillness, not to react. He was confident he could take both of them, but to do that would be to betray Bigglesworth's trust and ruin all that he had made here.
"Pretty sure you're not supposed to have this," Turnbull said, dangling the automatic from his fingers. He handed it to Miller, who pocketed it.
It was on the tip of Erich's tongue to tell them that Air Commodore Raymond had approved it. But he knew that Raymond turned a blind eye to a great many things he didn't have to. And he had no wish to drag what few friends he had into trouble with him.
Still—he had seen what happened to too many men who got into cars with other men who said "Come with me." And so he ducked out of Turnbull's grasp again when he was turned around, and therefore had no one but himself to blame when Turnbull smashed the butt of his gun into Erich's temple.
Pain exploded in his skull. As he staggered and collided with the wall, Miller said, "Damn it, Fred, he's cooperating!"
"And now he's a little more cooperative," Turnbull said. He grabbed a handful of Erich's shirt and cuffed him. Even dazed from the blow, Erich could see in his head all the moves that it would take to disable both men. He could see in front of him, like a flowchart to freedom, every step he would need to take to run. He still probably had his document cache at the hiding place in Holland Park that he had never emptied.
Instead, he allowed his hands to be locked into the cuffs, and himself to be propelled out the door.
He had no chance to get his stick or his jacket.
They went down the stairs, Erich doing his best to let himself be guided, not stumble—and not protest. There was nothing to be gained, he told himself. A fight on the very steps would do nothing but burn this place—this maybe-home—for the future. Any objection he put up could very easily get him thrown out of this country, or perhaps worse. He could easily see himself turned over to the Soviet Union as part of a prisoner exchange, or vanished into a pit of a prison for crimes that had been forgiven informally, but never officially.
So he allowed himself to be shoved into the backseat of the large black saloon idling at the kerb. He could feel blood running down his face and dripping on his collar. Miller slid in beside him and slammed the door.
"I'd like to make a telephone call," Erich said.
"You can do it soon." Miller started to hand him a handkerchief. "For your—uh—" He realised Erich couldn't take it with his hands cuffed. Looking awkward, he held the cloth to Erich's temple, attempting to stanch the bleeding.
Turnbull got in the front and pulled away from the kerb.
"Where am I being taken, please?" Erich asked.
"We only need to ask you some questions," Turnbull said over his shoulder.
The drive was not far, and the place they took him was nowhere he knew of, an unassuming building in which he was led down brightly lit corridors and into a small, square, unpleasant room. There was nothing in the room but a bolted-down table, two chairs, and a bright lightbulb. Erich knew of rooms like this. He had hoped not to end up in one.
Still, he remained docile as they sat him in the chair. He was no longer entirely sure why. It felt disloyal to Bigglesworth, he thought, to do anything else. He had come to this country intending to play by its rules, and he hoped to do exactly that.
"I'd like to speak to a lawyer," he said.
"You can soon," Turnbull said. Having sat Erich in the chair behind the table, he took the one in front. Miller leaned against the wall.
"What am I being charged with, please?"
"You're not," Turnbull said. "Not yet, anyway. We have some questions, that's all. You tell us what we need to know, and you can walk right out that door."
The questions were ones that Erich had no answers for. He didn't know the people who were mentioned, and on all of the dates that they gave him, he had been at home in his flat.
"Alone?" Turnbull asked.
"I live alone," Erich said sharply.
The questioning wore on, never going anywhere, and while they refused to tell him exactly what they thought he'd done, he began to piece together from their questions and omissions what had happened.
It seemed that the Soviets had been operating a listening post in Kensington, recently unmasked, and through Erich's sheer bad luck, it was just a few doors down the street from his flat. Erich had to admit that if he knew a known former spy lived in the area, he would have leaped to similar conclusions, especially given the irregular circumstances surrounding his defection.
He could think of nothing to say to convince them of his innocence.
"May I have a call, please?" he asked during one of the pauses in questioning. His head was throbbing, and his request for water had fallen on uncaring ears. "I'd like to call William Raymond at Scotland Yard. He can speak on my behalf."
Turnbull heaved a sigh and sat back. "This is going nowhere. We're wasting time. I told you from the beginning—"
"There's no need for irregular techniques," Miller said sharply.
Erich could only blame the relative relaxation of the last couple of years, combined with his exhaustion from the hours of questioning, for the lapse of attention that allowed what happened next. Before he fully registered it, Turnbull had wrenched up his sleeve and plunged a needle into his arm.
Erich recoiled violently, lashing out with a foot. The moves were instinctive. He had Turnbull on the floor, was up out of his chair, and had knocked Miller into the wall with his hands still cuffed, using his shoulder and elbow to pin the man's gun arm.
And then rationality caught up with him. He could escape, but there was nowhere to go—nowhere he wanted to go, at any rate. All he would do was blow up everything he had here.
Erich backed off. Miller shoved him into the chair, and Turnbull scrambled up off the floor, rubbing his leg. "Nice try," he snapped. "Cuff him to the table."
Erich allowed himself to be repositioned, clenching his teeth with the effort that it took not to fight back. His arm burned. "What did you inject me with?" he demanded. He was not going to fight if he could help it, but he no longer considered them worth being polite to.
"Interrogation drug," Turnbull said. "We'll find out if you're lying now."
Erich closed his eyes briefly, getting control of himself. He felt flushed, sweaty one moment and cold the next. There were no true truth-serum drugs, he reminded himself; as an expert in interrogations himself, he knew this. All they could do was give him drugs to drop his inhibitions and cause him to babble. It would be humiliating, but no worse than that. All they could force him to reveal was outdated intelligence about his former employers, which everyone on the other side of the Iron Curtain assumed he had revealed anyway. They could make him talk about Bigglesworth, and his skin crawled at the deep, embarrassing exposure of it—but once again, he would not die of it. That Bigglesworth was his friend was hardly a secret. His feelings for Bigglesworth might compromise him, but there had never been any reciprocation on the other side, nothing that could hurt Bigglesworth's career. It was personally painful, but not dangerous to anyone else.
All of these thoughts passed through a mind that was rapidly growing fuzzier. He was sweating heavily now; he could feel his shirt dampened and clinging to him. The bleeding from his scalp, which had stopped, was beginning to ooze again, mixed with sweat. Erich imagined that he must look like a wreck, and this almost made him laugh before he managed to stifle it and straighten out his face. He was losing control faster than he had thought he would. He reminded himself again that humiliation would not kill him.
"Looks like it's taking effect. He's starting to blink a lot," Turnbull said.
"It's bright in here," Erich said. "That's the drug, isn't it? The lights and the drug. You use bright lights to make it harder for the subject—that's me—to think. I've done this before, you know." He paused. "I'm talking a lot."
"That's the idea," Turnbull said. He sat on the edge of the table. "Now we'll see if we can get somewhere with those questions you didn't want to answer earlier."
Another flush of sweat prickled up Erich's back. He felt unwell, sticky and ill and weak. "I answered all your questions," he said. "I'd like a drink of water, if you don't mind. I understand that you're trying to wear down my resistance, but you're honestly not doing a very good job of it. You English don't know the first thing about getting information out of prisoners."
"Oh, really?" Turnbull said. He ignored the request, instead leaning forward. "I suppose you do. You've sat in on more than a few interrogations yourself, haven't you?"
He had indeed, and burning with humiliation and self-loathing as well as the drug, Erich began to talk about them. These were parts of his life he hated to think about, and shining a light into those dark corners twisted him with guilt and self-hate. But it was not going to kill him, he reminded himself—and accidentally said aloud before burying it under more words.
Turnbull slammed his hands on the table. Erich, his defenses in tatters from the drugs, flinched helplessly. "I don't care about any of that rot," he snapped. "We know what you've done. What we want to know is what you're doing now. What are you up to? Why would a spy be living in the middle of London and not up to anything?"
"I've told you repeatedly that I'm not," Erich said. It was hard to be properly angry with the mental fuzziness of the drug softening all his edges. He would have liked to have been able to help. He was filled with a confusing and disturbing muddle of feelings: he knew he should be furious, and somewhere underneath it all he could feel a muddled mix of anger and humiliation and despair, but the drug had flushed him with a warm softness. He was having trouble staying upright, and would have loved to lean against something. Someone. Definitely not either of them. "Is Bigglesworth here?"
"Why would he be here?" Turnbull gave him a sharp shake. "Stay awake. Bigglesworth—that's James Bigglesworth, correct? The pilot? Is he mixed up in this?"
"Bigglesworth? Of course not," Erich scoffed, to the extent that he was capable of scoffing in his warm, mellow state. "If you think Bigglesworth is involved in anything shady or underhanded, you clearly haven't met the man. He's as true as a compass pointing north. He would never betray his country—never. Nor anyone who trusted him. It's why his men are so loyal to him. Everyone who's ever met him could probably tell you a story about—"
"We don't need to know about Bigglesworth," Miller interrupted hastily. He sounded amused as well as annoyed. "What we want to know is what you're doing in Kensington."
"It's close to Bigglesworth," Erich said promptly. "Not too close, of course; that would be stalking him, wouldn't it, and I don't do that kind of thing anymore, at least I try not to. It's not as if I can move into a flat on Mount Street, don't you think? It's a good neighbourhood, Kensington. Not too close and not too far."
"Er," said Miller.
"And while we're on the subject of Bigglesworth," Erich said, with the relief of finally having something to talk about that wasn't distressing or terrible. "I have a lot of doubt that his country appreciates him as it should. Do you, do any of you, understand the asset you have in that man? I would have given anything to get him on my side, just once, but it would never happen—could never happen. He's brave and true and loyal, and—"
"No one asked you about Bigglesworth," Turnbull said, sounding slightly desperate. "I need to know about—"
"You did," Erich said promptly. "I'm quite sure you did. The question was about Bigglesworth and spying, wasn't it? He would never—well, not since the war, but that was by necessity and I don't think he liked it much. He was very good at it, though. Almost a prodigy. I knew the moment I saw him at Zabala that there was something different about him, but I could not have guessed the real answer. I have never crossed swords with such a worthy opponent. The two of you are unfit to shine his boots."
Miller coughed in the way of someone trying to stifle laughter. Turnbull grabbed Erich's collar, pulling him sharply forward and throwing off his precarious equilibrium.
"For the last time," he said grimly. "Forget Bigglesworth."
"I tried," Erich said. "It didn't work."
Turnbull gave him a hard shake, snapping his teeth together. Erich tasted blood. "Shut up about Bigglesworth already. We're not playing around. We can make this a lot rougher on you, do you understand that?"
"I'm not seeing much sign of it so far," Erich said, jolted out of oncoming melancholy by professional interest. "Honestly—do you mind constructive criticism? Because I've had better interrogators than the two of you. I don't see why I should take this interrogation seriously if you aren't."
Turnbull slapped him hard, making his ears ring. Miller jerked a little. "Fred, hey—"
He was interrupted by the interrogation room door slamming open and crashing against the wall so hard that it rebounded.
Both men froze, and Erich looked up.
Bigglesworth was standing in the doorway. He was slightly rumpled and wearing his flight jacket and—oh, he had just got back from somewhere, Erich thought. His jaw was dusted with a day's worth of golden stubble and his boots were dusty and his hair was mussed. It took Erich a dazed moment to also take in that Bigglesworth's face was white with fury and his jaw so clenched that a muscle was twitching in his cheek.
"Unlock him," Bigglesworth said. "Now."
"You have absolutely no jurisdiction—" Turnbull began.
"You have no jurisdiction to arrest a legal refugee in this city who hasn't done anything." Bigglesworth's voice was hot, his eyes flaming. Erich gazed at him. He wasn't sure if he'd ever seen Bigglesworth that angry before. It was an amazing look on him. "Did you even let him talk to a lawyer? Of course not. I'll have lawyers on you for this, don't worry, you'll get to speak to plenty of lawyers. And if you don't want my fists on you as well, I'd step out of my way immediately."
"He hasn't been arrested," Miller said. While Turnbull squared off against Biggles, he had been undoing the cuffs holding Erich to the table. "We're just questioning him."
"Is that why his face is all over blood?" Biggles demanded. "Is that how you question people?" His voice shook with fury. He shoved past Turnbull, and Erich took a moment to admire how the much bigger Turnbull yielded like an Alsatian being savaged by a terrier. Then Bigglesworth put an arm around Erich, helping him up. Unable to help himself, Erich leaned into his wiry strength. Bigglesworth was shaking with anger, but he touched Erich gently, and supported him when his legs tried to buckle.
"You can't just walk out of here with him," Turnbull snapped.
"I certainly will, and I'll be sending a complaint to my chief, and your chief, and his chief and everyone up the chain to the Home Secretary if I have to. Now get out of my way."
The sight of both men falling back from an enraged Bigglesworth was one that Erich would happily carry with him to his dying day. He had no idea how to react to the rest of it, particularly Bigglesworth helping him along with an arm around him, incandescently furious over him. There was no way that he could look at this that made sense, so he decided to just go along with it. Maybe he really was dying.
"You're not dying," Bigglesworth said, and looked up at him. They were outside the room in a too-bright corridor now, and everyone was very hastily getting out of Bigglesworth's way. "But you're very hot, and you're very—" He seemed unable to decide how to finish that sentence. "What did they give you, do you know?"
"Drug," Erich said. "It was in a needle."
"Do you feel sick? They might have an antidote."
"I just want to leave," Erich said. His voice shook a little. Suddenly the idea of waiting even another few minutes seemed intolerable.
"Yes. Of course. We're leaving."
They went past a secretary who tried to talk to them and was ignored, out the door, and were abruptly on the pavement. Erich recoiled as the noise and hustle of the street—the cars, the smell of exhaust, voices, even the brightness of the sky—hit him like a hammer blow. He felt abruptly very ill, crushingly exhausted, too small and too naked.
Bigglesworth was talking to him. "It's all right. You're all right. No, just hold on to me." Erich found himself put into the back of a car, which made him resist briefly with memories of earlier—but no, it was Bigglesworth's hands on him, and there were no handcuffs and there was Algy Lacey leaning round from the driving seat of the Bentley, saying, "What in the world happened to his face?"
"Something worse is going to happen to the men who did it, believe me," Bigglesworth said grimly. He leaned over to slam the door, and suddenly Erich was shut into the Bentley with just the two of them. It felt closed up and safe. With Lacey there, however, he didn't want to lean on Bigglesworth as he would have done; in fact he was having to hold on to his control with every fibre of his being. He was afraid of a torrent of words spilling out if he dared to open his mouth.
"What did they—" Bigglesworth began.
"Don't ask me questions, please," Erich said, in as even a voice as he could manage. "I don't know what I'll say. I don't have much control. Please don't ask me anything."
Bigglesworth closed his mouth. The car had jolted into motion, moving out into the flow of traffic, but Erich's attention was arrested by Bigglesworth's eyes, which were fixed on his face, with their soft and ever-shifting array of colours as the car moved and the light hit them.
"I won't," Bigglesworth said quietly. "I won't. We'll just take you back to Mount Street and let it wear off—all right?"
"All right." Erich had little idea what he was agreeing to. He would have agreed to almost anything, if Bigglesworth was the one saying it, because Bigglesworth wouldn't do anything that would hurt him.
"No, I won't." The voice was very soft. "Why don't you stop talking for a while. Look, you can just rest here, maybe sleep a little if you can, and I'll wake you up when we get there, how does that sound?"
Erich nodded. He wasn't sure how he ended up drifting sideways until his head was resting on Bigglesworth's shoulder, and some part of him felt that he really should be having more of a problem with this, especially with an unusually quiet Lacey in the front seat. But he couldn't bring himself to pull away, especially when Bigglesworth rested a hand on his head and began to lightly stroke his hair.
He hissed in pain when Bigglesworth's hand encountered the gash from Turnbull's weapon. Bigglesworth jerked his hand away, and then the light, deft fingers carefully explored around it.
"Did they hit you with something?" Bigglesworth began, his voice taut with suppressed anger. Then he said quickly, "No, don't talk about it. We'll talk later. Just rest."
Erich closed his eyes. The movement of the car was making him dizzy, but Bigglesworth was an island of stability in the midst of it all. The slim hand resumed stroking his hair, carefully avoiding the hurt place.
***
He came back to himself with Bigglesworth helping him out of the car. His bad leg almost buckled under him, making him aware that it hadn't appreciated having been force-marched down several flights of stairs, followed by hours on a very uncomfortable chair. Bigglesworth caught him, snaking a lithe arm around his waist. Erich leaned into the support.
"Did you have your stick with you?" Bigglesworth asked.
"No," he said. Simple questions were easy to deal with. He appreciated that Bigglesworth seemed to intuitively understand this, and wondered abruptly if Bigglesworth had ever been drugged like this.
"We'll talk about that later," Bigglesworth said, making him once again aware that he was having a lot of trouble distinguishing his thoughts from his speech. Rather than easing, the drug's effects seemed to be intensifying. Possibly this was due to relaxing now that he was out of the interrogation room.
"You know," said Lacey's voice from below them on the steps, sounding sardonically amused, "it would have saved us a lot of trouble over the years if he'd narrated his plans out loud like this."
"If you'd like to be of use, I can't reach my key," Biggles said sharply.
Lacey edged past them on the landing and unlocked the door. Erich would have been completely unsurprised if he had then sprinted into the flat and left them alone, but instead he helped Biggles get Erich the rest of the way inside.
"Where to?" Lacey asked.
"My room. He should lie down somewhere dark."
Lacey, Erich thought, had an impressive ability to convey entire paragraphs of opinions with his silence.
"Thank you, Erich," Lacey said. "I'll keep that in mind for future."
"We don't seem to be getting closer to the bedroom," Bigglesworth said pointedly.
They lowered him onto the bed. Erich caught himself, planting his hands on the duvet, as he started to tilt sideways. Bigglesworth's bedroom. He was in Bigglesworth's bedroom.
"What do you need?" Bigglesworth asked. He had gone down on one knee, bringing him slightly below Erich's eye level so that he wasn't looming over him. Erich wasn't sure where Lacey had got off to. "I'll get you some water to wash with. Do you want something to eat or drink?"
Erich wet his lips with his tongue, abruptly aware of his thirst. "To drink," he said. "Water, please. I asked for water but they wouldn't give me any."
"I will be having extensive words with Raymond and also with their chief." Bigglesworth reached a hand up, lightly touching the side of his face to turn his head. "This doesn't look too bad. What was it? Grip of a gun?"
"He hit me with his weapon," Erich said. "The big one. Turnbull. I was cooperating," he added, wanting Bigglesworth to know that. "Trying to. I wasn't going to escape, I really wasn't."
Bigglesworth's lips tightened, his entire face going set and still. His hand remained on the side of Erich's face. "I know you weren't," he said. "I'll bring some things to clean you up. Lie down if you like."
He rose and left before Erich could answer. There was something deeply reassuring about that characteristic energetic swiftness. He pulled the door nearly closed behind him, leaving only a stripe of light coming in from the hall. Erich heard Bigglesworth and Lacey's voices speaking distantly.
Left alone in a dim, quiet place, he found his equilibrium recovering somewhat. The curtains were closed; he didn't remember it having been done, but it plunged the room into a comforting dimness broken by a few stray, thin shafts of daylight. Erich could not help looking around the room. His old operative's instincts drove him to scope out any new place, but also, this was Bigglesworth's place. He was at once wildly curious and also worried about intruding, but meanwhile he looked about, his eyes skimming across aviation prints and charts on the walls, and shelves crowded with books and atlases and binders of maps. There was a lot to look at. Bigglesworth was no packrat, but over the years it seemed he had acquired a number of odd and interesting keepsakes. The windowsill was crowded with small objects, model aeroplanes and art pieces and curios from a dozen countries. Erich recognised a few of them. The buttonhole badge with the Aladdin's Lamp insignia was familiar, though he could not immediately remember from where.
The door opened again, jerking Erich out of his dazed contemplation of the windowsill. Bigglesworth entered. He had taken off his flight jacket and had his sleeves rolled up. His hair was still endearingly ruffled.
"Here," Bigglesworth said, handing Erich a glass of water. He drank it gratefully. "There'll be tea soon, if you want it. Let me get that head."
He had brought with him a bowl of warm water, and Erich sat compliantly and allowed Bigglesworth to clean his forehead and the side of his face with swipes of a soft, damp cloth. The hazel eyes were fixed on him, intelligent and focused. It was strangely pleasing to be the focus of that intent gaze.
"This will sting a bit," Bigglesworth said. He poured Betadine from the medical kit on a cotton ball and dabbed at Erich's forehead. "Is there anything else?"
"No," Erich said. He was finding himself increasingly embarrassed by the attention, which made him think the drug might be starting to wear off somewhat. "They didn't hurt me. I ... don't want you to put yourself in a bad situation on my account. They were only doing their jobs. There was good reason to be suspicious of me. I understand that."
"We'll talk about this later," Bigglesworth said. He began to pack away the contents of the medical kit. "For now, just lie here and sleep it off. It's no trouble at all, and you can stay as long as you need. I'll be in and out, I expect, but someone will be here if you need anything." He stood up, looking down at Erich, with thin stripes of afternoon sunlight through the crack in the curtains catching his hair. "Is there anything else you want before I go?"
Erich looked up at him. It was still difficult to think clearly; his head was a confusing montage of the agents shoving their way into his flat, the bare interrogation room, and Bigglesworth in the doorway like a slim, rumpled avenging angel. Reticence fought with the inhibition-lowering qualities of the drug, and the drug won. "I would like it if you would ... stay a bit, if you don't mind."
"No," Bigglesworth said. He set the bowl of water down so quickly that he slopped some on the carpet. "No—no, of course I don't mind."
He helped Erich lie down on top of the duvet, and pulled the pillows into place for him. Then, very cautiously, he lay down beside him, stretching out on the duvet on his side, facing Erich. Cautiously, he reached out and touched the back of Erich's neck, ran his hand through his hair.
"Is this all right?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," Erich said. "It's all right."
He closed his eyes. The slim fingers kept stroking the back of his neck, running up under his cropped hairline. His neck was tacky with half-dried sweat and must have been unpleasant to touch, but there was no hesitation. Bigglesworth ran his blunt fingernails across Erich's skin, and for the first time in this long, awful day, he felt himself truly relax.
***
He woke exhausted, aching, and hung over—but clear-headed. He was lying in Bigglesworth's bed, or rather on it, and he was alone. There was a large glass of water on the nightstand, along with a cold cup of tea, and clean clothing folded on the chair by the bed. It was, he found, his own clothing, from his own flat. He drank the water, changed, and touched his temple to find a spongy swelling and the surrounding short hair dried to stiff spikes with sweat and Betadine. After smoothing his hair down with his hand, he could no longer find reasons to delay going out to the flat.
He cautiously ventured forth. It was night, dark outside the windows, and Lacey was reading a paper at the table.
"Oh, hello there," he said when Erich stopped in the doorway. "Are you—back?"
"The drug's worn off, if that's what you mean."
"Thank God," Lacey said, heartfelt. "Biggles is at the Yard with the rest of our lot, raising hell from what I hear. You know where the bathroom is, and if you want to eat something, there's cold chicken for sandwiches. Want me to get some?"
Erich became aware that he was starving. "Yes, please," he said quietly.
He spent a long time in the bathroom, using a cloth and his fingertips to scrub blood out of his hair, then rinsing his face under the tap. He stared at himself in the mirror, looking pale and haunted and tired, with blue smudges under his eyes. After a while, he drew a breath, wrung out and folded the cloth neatly, and went out to see what he had to face.
What he had to face was a chicken sandwich on the table, with a steaming cup of tea beside it and a pair of paracetamol tablets on the edge of the plate. Lacey seemed to be busying himself in the sitting room. Erich ate the sandwich and washed the tablets down with the strongly sugared tea, and he was just considering whether to go into the sitting room and attempt to have a conversation when he heard laughter and voices. Bigglesworth and the rest were back.
The urge to slip out the back was very strong.
Instead, he got up and limped quietly into the sitting room. Bigglesworth was taking off his coat, speaking animatedly to the others, while Lissie knelt at the fire to warm his hands, and Lacey and Hebblethwaite were speaking to each other. It was a brief, bright tableau of a life Erich was not part of.
But then Bigglesworth turned and saw him, and his face brightened as if illuminated by a rising sun. Erich was caught off guard by the beauty of it. Perhaps there was still some of the drug in his system, after all.
"Algy said you were up," Bigglesworth said. He threw his coat carelessly across a chair and came over to Erich.
"We've just got back from jolly old Whitehall," Lissie said from the fire. "Buzzin' like a hive of bees now that Biggles has thrust a stick into the middle of their bally honeycomb."
"We also saw the state of your flat," Hebblethwaite said. "Actually, Biggles had me there all afternoon putting things to rights."
Erich was suddenly embarrassed anew. "You didn't have to."
"Yes, we did," Bigglesworth said. He was looking up into Erich's face, his quick, flitting gaze moving from his hairline—cataloguing the state of his injury as he might have checked on the repair status of an aeroplane—and then meeting his eyes. "They had no right, and you have no need to clean up their mess. Have you eaten?"
"Yes, Lacey saw to that," Erich said, and Bigglesworth flashed Lacey a grateful look. But Erich wasn't finished. Looking across the gathered lot of them, he struggled with words that did not come easily to him. "Thank you all. I am very much in your debt for the help."
It was Lacey, surprisingly, who spoke first. "There's no debt. You don't owe us anything."
"What he said, old boy," Bertie declared. "Anyone else want a go at the old feed trough?"
With some jesting, Bertie and Lacey left to bring supper for the rest. Hebblethwaite had gone off to the bathroom, leaving Bigglesworth and Erich alone.
"I'll be going, I think," Erich said quietly.
"You don't have to." Bigglesworth looked up at him, searching his face with his eyes—for what, Erich wasn't certain. "You've already slept in my bed," he added, a crooked smile tugging the corner of his mouth. "We've put your flat back together, but I wouldn't mind if you want to sleep here tonight. I don't think anyone else will either."
"I ... appreciate the offer, but I think I need a little time to myself." Erich struggled and failed to articulate what he was feeling, the stripped-bare nature of the day, the amount of putting himself back together that he still had to do.
"I understand," Bigglesworth said quietly, and he lifted his hand off Erich's arm, stepping back a little. There was no rancor, no resentment of the rejection of his offer, just a gentle wistfulness.
And that, perhaps, was what made Erich take a step forward of his own, bringing himself back into Bigglesworth's personal space. He touched the narrow chin with his fingertips, and Bigglesworth's eyes were like stars as Erich drew him forward and gently kissed the soft lips.
It started careful and tentative, but Bigglesworth opened his mouth and Erich was breathless when they parted. The soft hazel eyes gazing into his were alight with wonder and delight.
"I didn't say never," Erich said softly, brushing a thumb across the parted, shocked lips. "Just not tonight."
"Yes—I—yes," Bigglesworth said. Erich quietly gloried in having rendered him speechless, a rare pleasure. "Would you—like a ride?"
"No, it's a fine night and I can catch a cab easily."
"Wait, there's a walking stick in the umbrella stand, Bertie's I think. You should borrow it for tonight. Bertie won't mind; he never uses it."
Bigglesworth walked him to the door, his hand light on Erich's arm. Erich was always aware of him—his physicality, his grace—but he had never been so intensely conscious, as he was now, of every aspect of the slim body beside his own: the sure, quick movements, the warmth of the hand on his arm. He felt lightheaded in a pleasant way that was nothing like the disorienting high of the drug.
"This shouldn't have happened," Bigglesworth said suddenly. Erich gave him a startled look, jolted out of his peaceful mood. Bigglesworth shook his head. "No, no—not—that. That was—" He smiled, sudden and startling. "Good," he said, and brushed his hand down Erich's arm. "Wonderful. No, I mean earlier. When you came to London with me, I had hoped to show you the best of Britain, not—men like Agent Turnbull." He stopped speaking, rummaging in the umbrella stand.
"There are men like him everywhere. There's nothing you can do about that."
"I'll root them out wherever I find them," Bigglesworth said grimly. "He won't do this to anyone else."
He turned round and handed the walking stick to von Stalhein. It was a very fine one, topped with a falcon-shaped silver head.
"I know that you will," Erich said, looking into his face.
He no longer had the drug loosening his tongue, so he couldn't quite bring himself to say what he was thinking, that the best of Britain was here before him. But Bigglesworth might have read some of it in his face; the hazel eyes were warm and bright as Bigglesworth took his face in both hands and kissed him again.
They broke apart with mutual smiles at the clatter and laughter of Bigglesworth's associates coming back. It felt like being teenage sweethearts, the shy tentative wonder of it. Erich had no idea how much this would change the shape of things to come. Unusually for him, he found that he didn't want to know. Trying to think three steps ahead hadn't worked so well for him lately. Maybe it was time, for a little while, to take things as they came and try to accept, as Bigglesworth seemed to, that everything might work out after all in the end. With Bigglesworth around, it often did.
"You'll be—safe?" Bigglesworth queried softly. His fingers skated lightly across the side of Erich's face, coming just short of touching the bruised gash on the side of his head. Instead, he furtively pushed back some of the short hair above his ear. And Erich heard the unspoken questions: Are you afraid? Can I help?
"I will be fine." Erich smiled down into the delicately elegant beauty of the face turned up to his. "I have valiant defenders in my corner, after all."